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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Harvey Allen who wrote (126631)	3/20/2004 8:14:59 AM
From: John Carragher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

"That's why the US lost in Vietnam. It could not create a functioning, legitimate puppet government or create meaningful economic reform" I believe we lost the Vietnam war because we didn't let the military run the war. we had a president back here picking targets, not letting prime targets be acted upon, and playing politics. We lost because of the administration not because of the our military.

To: Harvey Allen who wrote (126631)	3/20/2004 7:35:47 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

<if the US loses this is counterinsurgency war, it will be primarily because it has completely messed up the political and economic side> No. It doesn't matter how much oil we pump, how many schools we paint. We have, once again, got ourselves on the wrong side of a nationalist war of liberation. Our mistake was invading the country, without any viable local proxy force to police the ground we'd conquered. <Militarily, the US has total dominance.> This mistaken belief, comes from judging a non-conventional war, using the standards of success for a conventional war. The fact that we planted our flag in Saddam's palaces, does not mean we are dominant, or even winning. You cannot defeat a guerrila opponent, unless you separate him from his civilian base of support, and we have totally failed to do that. <a functioning, legitimate puppet government> Don't you see the obvious contradiction in terms? How can any Iraqi government appointed and controlled by us, be legitimate? <if in five years down the line the resistance has grown> We will be long gone, in 5 years. The retreat has already begun. In 5 years, the Ayatollahs, nukes in hand, will be running Iraq. That's what Bush has done.